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The Illusion of ‘America’s Next Top Model’
00:43:36
Bridget Armstrong explains how the iconic reality show exploited the promise of a career to make reality TV gold.
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- [00:00]
Slate Plus Announcer
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Emily Peck
Hello, and welcome to Money Talks, a special extra podcast from Slate Money, where we chat with brilliant and interesting people. I'm Emily Peck. I'm a writer at Axios and co host of Slate Money. And I'm here today with Bridget Armstrong. She's an audio journalist and a senior producer and host of the podcast Curse of America's Next Top Model. It is an amazing reassessment of one of the most popular reality TV shows of all time, I think, and definitely of the 2000s so far. 24 seasons ended in 2018. That's now going through this sort of, like, reassessment. I don't know what you would call it, but we'll get into all of it. Welcome, Bridget.
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Bridget Armstrong
Hi, Emily. Thanks for having me.
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Emily Peck
I'm so glad you're here. I wanted to talk to you because I guess I should say right off the bat that I didn't watch American as Next Top Model. I was aware of it. I knew about smizing, which is Tyra Banks word for smiling with your eyes, which I tried to do this morning for my husband, and then just started laughing. Cause I can't do it.
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Bridget Armstrong
Don't feel bad. I watched 24 seasons, and I still can't do it.
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Emily Peck
I'm gonna practice.
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Bridget Armstrong
It's a really hard thing. I guess that's why models do it, not podcasters.
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Emily Peck
Anyway, so I wanted to talk to you because there's this new Netflix documentary out now called Reality Check that's been really popular that I watched and then thought, oh, it'd be really interesting to talk the business of reality TV show through this lens of America's Next Top Model, all the ways that it sort of promised these very young women entry into the modeling world and a career in modeling, and all the ways that let them down and all the things you expose on your podcast about the contracts used in the industry, about how the producers manipulate the narratives, plus a lot of the other stuff that I think the Netflix show. And you really go in depth on the racism, the sexism, all the isms. One Slate writer called this reality TV show a fever dream. I don't know if that's true, but I think it just. It hits all the themes that I've wanted to talk about. So I'm so excited to get into it all with you. And that's all coming up next on Slate. Money Talks.
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Emily Peck
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Bridget Armstrong
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Emily Peck
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Bridget Armstrong
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Emily Peck
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Bridget Armstrong
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Emily Peck
Bridget, why, why did you want to do a podcast about a reality TV show that ended eight years ago?
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Bridget Armstrong
So I'm a big reality fan, and Top Model was probably the first show that I really got into. It came out when I was a teenager. Like I was in high school. Survivor had been out, American Idol was out. I feel like American Idol was just like a, just like a family type of show that everybody watched, right? But I wasn't, like, into it. But Top Model had this combination of, like, fashion, young women who, like, were kind of my age. And it felt like it was the first show that was speaking to someone like me. So it was a show that I watched for many years after it premiered. And it was a show that I revisited a bit in 2020 when everybody else was revisiting it and realizing this is horrifying. What were we watching? And so to me, it's hard to find another show that had been off as long as it had been. Like, it went off in 2018, but still got so much criticism. Anytime Tyra Banks did anything right, like, people would bring up, you exploited those girls. Or they bring up the craziest moment they remember from the show. But there was still so much conversation around Top Model. And it's a show that I think had a huge influence on, like, a generation of young women, so millennial women around my age. So many of us watch that show. There's so many things that were normalized on that show for us. Things like, you know, we talked about smizing, right? Like, that's in the Dictionary, like words like that, but even like scarier stuff like body shaming, you know, certain stereotypes about how people behave and what to expect from them. We saw a lot of that on that show and I think when we're watching it as like a 14, 15 year old girl, you don't realize how much that shapes your view of yourself, your relationship to beauty, how you feel about your own body, what you think is okay on television, like what people have to go through to get a thing that they want. All of that was very normalized on that show. So I thought it was a really great time to revisit the show. That had a huge impact on me and a lot of other young women. And also it seems like Netflix agreed with me. So.
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Emily Peck
Yeah, well, I guess before we go any further, we should probably just say America's Next Top Model. When did it first launch? It was.
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Bridget Armstrong
It was 2002. Well, 2003. Sorry. So the first season was taped 2002 and then 2003 premiere.
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Emily Peck
Okay. So premiered in 2003. Tyra Banks was basically like her brainchild, at least according to both your podcast and the Netflix documentary. And the idea was kind of like Survivor meets something else.
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Bridget Armstrong
It's actually like Real World.
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Emily Peck
No, it's not Survivor.
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Bridget Armstrong
It's not Survivor. It's like Real World meets an American Idol type of show. Like a show where there's a talent and people are also living in a house together. Yeah.
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Emily Peck
So they're all living in a house together, but they're also competing to be a star. They're competing to be America's Next Top Model. And the idea is that they battle it out and then at the end, one of them wins, like a contract to be a model, basically.
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Bridget Armstrong
Basically, yeah.
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Emily Peck
And Tyra Banks is a very successful model in her own right, so had a lot of cachet. All these girls were just very excited to compete for this. But like, right there, right away, you sort of break down some myths. The first thing being that at the end of this show, you don't get to be a top model. There's 24 seasons. And has had anyone ever succeeded in the modeling industry that you know about?
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Bridget Armstrong
No. I mean, I think there's only one model who we could say counts as a supermodel or a mega successful model, and that's Winnie Harlow. Winnie Harlow was on a later season when they had multiple eliminations that could bring people back. The show really got crazy in its later seasons, but Winnie Harlow was one of those people who was eliminated, brought back, and then eliminated again. She did not win the show. Winnie Harlow has since. I think she did Andy Cohen's show on Bravo, Watch what happens live. And she point blank said, that show did not help me at all. There are people who debate that, who say the exposure itself, like, did help her in some ways, but according to her, it didn't help her. And she's the most successful person, which isn't a great sign that a show treated the contestants well. When your biggest star from the show says, it didn't help me at all, it actually hurt me. Other models, I talked to a handful, and there are some who became working models. Right. That's not the same thing as a top model or a supermodel like a Tyra Banks. Although the show is promising to make people top models, but a large majority of the models, they didn't get a career out of this at all. They, in some cases say their careers were hurt. There were models who were working before they're going on the show, right? Not like household names, but they were getting work after they went on the show. They did become household names, but not for modeling, maybe for the craziest thing they did on the show. And so now it was hard to book them in the toothpaste ad that they maybe would have done before going on a show like Top Model. And when you think about the idea that this show sold to us, right, that like Tyra Banks and her crew have this special eye and talent to make someone who is basically in obscurity make them into a top model. That's the idea they sold for 24 seasons. And we watched it kind of based on that premise. Right. It's wild to think that not one of those women actually went on to have the career that they promised and
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Emily Peck
they were even told. I mean, I think you have examples of women who, you know, their agent says, oh, you know, we're having a hard time getting you work because people don't want to hire any women that have been on this show like that. They have a stigma, basically. There was a stigma. It wasn't just that, you know, they couldn't break in or weren't good enough. It was almost like there's this stigma that they did all these, like, weird, extreme photographs and, you know, we just saw too much of their lives or something. I'm not sure exactly what the problem is, but it really hurt them.
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Bridget Armstrong
Absolutely. So there were the photo shoots that they did. Those photo shoots.
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Emily Peck
Yeah. Talk about the photo shoots.
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Bridget Armstrong
So, I mean, there was stuff like the rickety Runway photo shoot where the models were on a Runway that we heard that this Runway's floating on the water, right? And crew members went in and loosened some of the screws so that it could become even more rickety. So somebody will probably fall. Which people did fall into the water, right? Amazing tv. But it's not the sort of thing a real model would ever do. There was a photo shoot where they went to Greece and Tyra had them pose in a bowl of Greek salad. That's not something that wouldn't really happen in a real photo shoot. One of the producers we talked to was actually a real creative director and photographer for, like, high fashion, working with celebrities prior to his work on antm. And he said, yeah, I wouldn't have done any of this in the real world. But this was about tv. Like, this was about making a good show. The problem with that is when you take the photos, when you take your Greek salad photo to a real modeling agency, they're looking at you like, what the hell is this? We can't use this. So there was a very tangible fact that they couldn't even use the portfolio they got from the show because it was unrealistic photo shoots and it was way too touched up because it was for television. Right. Then there were some models I spoke with who got signed to agencies afterwards, but the agencies didn't know what to do with them. These days, if you go to a talent agency, there's probably a reality star slash, like influencer, Internet culture star division, right? That didn't exist back then at all. So you had these women who you would otherwise put in your modeling division who nobody really wants to work with. The client doesn't want to work with them because they're a distraction. People are going to be remembering the argument they got into on the show or the time Tyra cursed them out or whatever, Right? They're going to remember that they're not going to be looking at the product that's being sold in the ad. A show like American Idol. In the early years, we did see some stars, but that was a little different because we were the client, right? I could say, wow, I really love Kelly Clarkson's music. That Fantasia, she's great. I'm going to go buy that album. I may love have my favorite model on antm, but I am not the target audience. I can't employ her. I can't put her in an ad.
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Emily Peck
Great point.
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Bridget Armstrong
And so that was a huge issue.
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Emily Peck
That's such a great insight. And it really points to the difference then and now, because now with influencers and social media, we are now the client more so. And that's why you're seeing now, if someone's infamous for being on social media, they can actually launch a modeling career or from reality tv. Is that.
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Bridget Armstrong
Do I have that absolutely right? Yeah. Someone who does a reality show, someone who, yeah, is an influencer. There's a platform. You can roll that into another reality show. You can, like, you know, and get paid for it. You can bolster your Instagram profile and use the followers you gained by being on that show to get sponsorships. You can become an Instagram model who then becomes a real model. There are so many avenues for reality stars to become successful, even if the show they're on doesn't pay them a whole lot of money. But back in the early years of A and T M, really, most of A and T M, Right. Like Instagram, I think, became popular after A and T M had been on for almost 10. So really, most of the show, there were no avenues. There were a few people who. Like Adrienne Curry, who was the original. The first winner, first season of Top Model, she went on to do a reality show, Surreal Life, that came on back in the day. So there were a few who did other reality shows after that. She was married to one of the kids from the Brady Bunch, actually. I think they met on the Surreal Life. Jasmina, correct me if I'm wrong.
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Emily Peck
No, that's the only person I remember
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Bridget Armstrong
is Adrienne because of all of this long tale of other reality shows, other reality shows.
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Emily Peck
She was married to the guy who played Peter Brady. Peter Brady. Not even the top.
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Bridget Armstrong
Top. Not even the top bride, but she.
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Emily Peck
Just kidding.
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Bridget Armstrong
Any Brady Bunch lovers out there? Right? Yeah. She was able to sort of roll her Top Model fame into other reality TV fame, but we don't see that with a lot of the other women on that show because those opportunities just weren't there. Eva Pickford, who won season three many, many, many years later, was on Real Housewives of Atlanta, and she's also one of the most successful, I think, in the modeling and acting world from that show. But again, these are two people. Two or three people that I can name. For the most part, those avenues weren't there, and you couldn't as a model. So it just left a lot of the girls asking, why did I even do this in the first place on
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Emily Peck
the Netflix show Tyra Banks? And I want to. I want to talk about just her participation and all that, but on the show, she says something like, we pioneered Influencer culture. And I was kind of like, did you? I don't think that's right. Am I wrong there or.
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Bridget Armstrong
That's a hard question, right? Because I think everybody says they pioneered influencer culture. I talked to Perez Hilton for our podcast. He said he was the original influencer, which I was like, I never really thought of, but maybe you were. I don't know.
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Emily Peck
Everyone was.
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Bridget Armstrong
Everybody's the original influencer.
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Emily Peck
Everyone was influential. I mean, if that's the definition, like, we were influential, thus we were influencers. But she was gatekeeping. The show was gatekeeping these girls. And they weren't allowed to have their own, you know, direct to consumer pipeline, like you're saying.
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Bridget Armstrong
That's a really good point. Because not only were they gatekeeping, the contracts went out of their way to make sure that the women on that show couldn't derive any sort of compensation. After the show, I had someone tell me that they were told, you can't write a book, you can't do an interview. Like, anything that would you could possibly get paid for, they were contractually barred from doing once they left the show. So then that sort of goes against the idea that they're original influencers because they weren't even allowed to influence in a lot of ways.
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Emily Peck
Whoa. I didn't catch that. That they weren't. We should talk about the contracts, because you go into a lot of detail about how onerous the contracts were. I mean, basically, they could call you to service at any time, even after the show's up, and you'd have to do publicity for America's Next Top Model, like, whenever, and sign away your life rights. And I was pretty shocked.
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Bridget Armstrong
Reality contracts are not great even to this day. Right? Like, they're not great, but Top Models contract really stands out for being a particularly shitty contract. So, like you were saying, the winners. Right. We talked to Ioanna House, who won season two, they for the next year, as Ioana put it. She said, tyra owned me for that year, and Ioanna was one of the winners who did not get paid anything. So she won before the $100,000 CoverGirl contract was a feature of the wins. So she literally needed to work. She was signed to an agency, but she needed to work to make that money. She talked about moving to New York broke, sleeping on a makeup artist's couch. But she's famous. People are taking pictures with her, and she has to do all of this publicity for Top Model with Tyra, and she's not making any. And if a job were to call her and say, hey, we have a paying gig for you. If Top Model called her up to do some publicity, she had to do the Top Model thing, even though it wasn't going to pay her at all. And so she said she was really, really broke and really down the year after her win, because although she was the winner and she people did want her for jobs, she couldn't really jumpstart her career in the way that she thought she would be able to by winning the show.
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Emily Peck
Yeah, that seems pretty onerous. You had one woman you talked to who turned to sex work after she
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Bridget Armstrong
left the show, Angelea Preston. So she was on two seasons. Angeli's story is probably one of the most heartbreaking stories, I think, on our podcast. And she's also one of the most fun people to speak with. Like, Angelique has an amazing personality, and she's one of those people that you're like, if you hadn't done reality TV a few years later, I think you could have been a really big star. Like, I think you could have leveraged that. But she's doing fine. She's a journalist these days, so I
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Emily Peck
couldn't believe that after her whole story, you're like, and now she's a journalist. And I was like, of course she is.
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Bridget Armstrong
At a public radio station. Yes. Like, I was like, this is incredible. So very happy for her. Angeli describes herself as a round the way girl. Right. Like, she is from Buffalo, New York. She, you know, said she grew up in the hood. Like, these are things that she says about herself. And this show is often cast women who could fit certain stereotypes. Angeli is a black woman, biracial black woman. And. And they would cast people that can fit certain stereotypes. And I think they wanted Angeli to sort of be the loud, crass black woman on her season. And that is sort of how she was pushed and edited. So what do you know? When she got off the show, no one wanted to hire her because she was sort of painted as a difficult person. And she did turn to sex work, but she was also trafficked. Like, the man who trafficked her took her across state lines against her wishes. She couldn't go home. You know, definition of trafficking.
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Emily Peck
Yeah, I should have corrected myself. It wasn't just like she opted for that. It was kind of like she was pushed into it and then literally trafficked
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Bridget Armstrong
and then literally trafficked. So she does that. Then not too long after she gets out of that situation, she gets a call to do Top Model All Stars. They did an all Star season, but they Brought back all of our favorites to see who can battle it out, you know, all of our favorite losers because they only brought back people who didn't win. So she gets called to do that. According to Angeli, the casting director somehow knew about the trafficking and told her and admitted to knowing it and said, let's keep it between us. No one from Top Model has ever admitted that that happened. But what we do know is Angeli did really well in the competition and she won. She was crowned the winner. They taped her finale with her win a few weeks later after she's gone home. The check isn't in the bank, but she's certainly counting what to do with the money. She gets a call from producers and they tell her she needs to come to New York City. And they basically sit her down and say, we can't air you as the winner because you violated. And in the contract, there's like a moral turpitude clause, meaning that you can't do anything that they, I guess, is judged as immoral. And so they took away her win. The contract also says that the producers have discretion to take away win. So that also covered them in taking away her win. They didn't air her as the winner. They filmed a whole new finale. She didn't get any money. And this is also a person who doesn't come from money. So that's the part that makes it really, I think, exploitative that they find girls who actually really need these opportunities. And when you really need an opportunity, you may do some desperate things to make money, you know, and then they punish this woman for having to do desperate things and then being forced to do those desperate things.
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Emily Peck
So when we come back, we should talk about Tyra Banks, and I think we should also maybe talk about reality TV in general. And I think it's a very American thing to compete and, like, debase yourself in the end for a job, just a job. When we come back,
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- [23:46]
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Emily Peck
So I want to talk about Tyra Banks. And I was thinking a lot about the fact that she, you know, participated in the Netflix show, which was pretty, like, critical of her and brought up a lot of the criticisms that you've already talked about and more. And her especially her rant. Jasmine, you have to play the rant, okay?
- [24:37]
Bridget Armstrong
And you come in here with a defeatist attitude. I don't have a bad attitude. Maybe I am angry inside. I've been through stuff, so I'm angry. Yes, but it's not. This is not. Be quiet to everybody. Be quiet. That's what is wrong with you. Stop it. I have never in my life yelled at a girl like this. When my mother yells at this, it's because she loves me. I was rooting for you. We were all rooting for you. How dare you?
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Emily Peck
Is the documentary on Netflix in a way just as manipulative as America's Next Top Model? In some way? Is she, again, I don't know, agreeing to participate but also shaping the narrative in a way that the producers of the reality show also shaped the narrative. Am I thinking too hard about this? What do you think?
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Bridget Armstrong
I think that's what Tyra wanted it to be. Okay. In most of Tyra's responses to, like, criticisms about the show or criticisms about things she said or did, she would say it was a different time. She would say, this is what you guys, the audience wanted. You were demanding this. And I think that Tyra thought she was going to sort of be able to spin this in a way that favors her or at least lets her off the hook a bit. But I think what the Netflix doc did well was sort of juxtapose Tyra's answers to, like, the real life pain that these women experience or these scenes from the show where we're like, I can't believe that this actually happened. And so seeing that and then hearing Tyra and say to someone who was sexually assaulted on Camera and then made to call her boyfriend to tell him about that sexual assault on camera, and then made to go to a clinic on camera. All of these things. Seeing Tyra say it was a different time or this is what you wanted next to like that scene and watching that woman sort of break down emotionally recalling what happened to her, that sort of like, undercut those talking points of Tyra. So I think they did a good job of that. The other thing I'll say is we as journalists don't pay for interviews, right? So we couldn't pay people for their interviews for our podcast, but Netflix can. And so I think that even for some of these models, I'll just say, side note, there's another reality program we're gonna tackle on another season of Curse of. And one of the former stars from that show, he told me he was like, after I left that show, I was suicidal. My life is pretty much ruined, and I didn't get paid anything for it. If I'm gonna it do to bring up that pain again, I at least want to get paid this time. I get that. I was like, you know what?
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Emily Peck
Respect.
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Bridget Armstrong
That's a good argument.
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Emily Peck
I couldn't believe when they were on American Next Top Model, living in the house they got their per diem's was like, what, like $20 a day or something? To live in New York City, no, you have to do your own laundry. Like that. You're not. That's breakfast and maybe one spin in a washing machine.
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Bridget Armstrong
Literally, like, that's it. They fluctuate, right? So we talked to somebody from season one and somebody from the season and the ones on the last season, it was like a graduated thing. I think they made like 12 or $15. And if you made it to the next week, you make $22. And then if you make it to the next week, you make 30. You didn't even start at like the $20. And I think season two or three, they were making $50 a day. Right. But as you said, you had to have your own laundry. If you weren't on a photo shoot, you had to buy your own food, which I didn't realize that. I just thought, if I'm on a TV show and I'm here 24 hours, at the very least they're going to feed me. No, the food that they ate in the house, they had to buy themselves from that per diem, which is incredibly unfair when you're thinking about how much money Tyra Banks is making from this show.
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Emily Peck
I had to wonder in the end how much control she really had in the Netflix show. I guess there was a whole story about Tyra and the two Js. What are their names? Bridget, help me out.
- [28:20]
Bridget Armstrong
Ms. J and Mr. J. You could say Ms. J and Mr.
- [28:22]
Emily Peck
J. Ms. J and Mr. J, who were like, two core stars on the show. And at some point, the network decided that they didn't want to have them on the show anymore. And then Tyra Banks has to, like, basically fire them. And it's this whole storyline, this betrayal, blah, blah, blah. And I was left wondering, was that her decision or not? It wasn't clear to me that it was. And then I sort of was thinking, like, well, okay, she is in charge. She is making a lot of money, and these contestants are looking to her, you know, as a mentor and all of that. But at the end of the day, like, it's really the network driving the bus.
- [28:55]
Bridget Armstrong
That question of how much control Tyra had is one that depending on whose podcast or what docuseries you're watching, there are different. Tyra herself says she didn't have that much control. Right. Like, she's one person in a room of execs, and she's not the final person making the decision. She wasn't the person making the decision over production choices and all of that. Right. But then there are other people that are, like, especially in the first seasons, Tyra's in the editing bay, Tyra's meeting with the producers. Tyra makes a lot of those decisions. And I've heard from at least one source that it was Tyra's decision to cut Nigel Barker and the Jays because the show wanted a shakeup. I mean, there are other reports that, like, it was something that execs wanted and they wanted a new. A new, fresh batch of people. At that point, the ratings were kind of failing. Like, this is past ANTM's heyday. I think, though, for me, it kind of doesn't matter if Tyra is the one making every decision or she's just a part of a larger team. Tyra's the one who benefited from these decisions, and she benefited for a long time because, you know, maybe I do this show for one or two seasons, then I realize this is super exploitative. Tyra Banks doesn't have to continue to do that show, but she did for a really long time. And so if you don't like the decisions that execs make around you, you don't like the things the producers are doing or you don't agree with them continuing to host that show, and get a huge check from. It certainly doesn't send the message that you are not inapproprial of these things. So, yeah, for me, it kind of doesn't matter if she made all these decisions, she stayed and she was the main beneficiary.
- [30:27]
Emily Peck
One thing I wanted to ask you to talk about again, because you do talk about on your podcast also, sort of like your evolution on where the show stood in terms of how it portrayed, I guess, black people, how it portrayed LGBTQ people. And it seemed like you came into it toeing more towards the Tyra Banks line, which was like, we did so much for diversity. You know, we were just so groundbreaking. They did have the transgender woman in the show, isis, you know, obviously tons of black women. And thinking back to 2003, like, I was an adult, you know, and it was actually unusual to see that much diversity just on network television. So I could see how you would think that. But now everyone is looking back on it from the 2020 lens and from the modern day lens, and it's just so clear that they were setting up these storylines like you were saying, like, this contestant is gonna be the angry black woman and this contestant's gonna be like the two butch lesbian contestant and like, blah, blah, blah. So can you talk about sort of how you evolved your thinking around all of that?
- [31:27]
Bridget Armstrong
There's a reason Tyra uses that line in the face of her criticism. The line of we brought diversity to TV when there was no diversity. Right.
- [31:35]
Emily Peck
Yeah.
- [31:35]
Bridget Armstrong
And it is very true. Like, that's, I think, one of the hardest things about this show, especially when you're talking about something like beauty. Right. It could be very limiting. Our idea of who's a model at that time, I think it was often like a very tall, thin white woman. And that leaves out so many people and Tyra Banks. And including plus size models from the very first season and always including black and brown models really challenged that idea. And she said that's something she wanted to do because of her own time in the fashion industry being like literally one of two supermodel black supermodels of her time. So it's so hard because it's like, it's true. And it did change people's definition of beauty. I don't remember plus size models before antm, not on a mainstream stage. I know they existed, but I can't tell you anybody before that. Right. But I can name plus size models after that. It is within my realm of understanding that a model can be skinny, a model can be plus size, a Model can be a lot of different things. And I think Top Model had a lot to do with that. In that same regard. They were trying to make a really entertaining TV show. And people love stereotypes and they love to see other people sort of torn down for things that they may even feel insecure about themselves. Why does she think that she gets to be a model and she's plus size? So now it's. They like to hear Tyra and the judges say, oh, you need to lose weight, she's too big, or whatever. Stereotypes help tell easy stories, right? They're characters. That's the angry black girl. So I expect her to blow up on people. That's the pageant girl, right? So I expect her to not be able to, you know, put a spider on her face or whatever, not want to cut her hair. Like it's shorthand for us, right? And so because they sort of played into that and because it. They clearly found a formula that worked for them, they continued to do it. But in doing that, it sort of damaged, I think, a lot of these models careers. But it also just like reinforced stereotypes that people already felt about people of color, about plus size people. And so, yeah, when I came into it, I very much wanted to celebrate that part of it. Season three of Top Model was my favorite season because up to that point, it was the most diverse season. There were several black girls. The two finalists were both black women. I loved Eva. I cut my hair like her. But when I revisited that season, every black girl on that show was sort of turned into a stereotype or treated poorly. There was a black girl who was black on the outside, but white on the inside. They made that her storyline. There was Takara, who was plus size model, and I think probably one of the most successful plus size models from that show. She was treated horribly. She went on sets where they didn't have her size, even though they knew she was coming. Yaya was very Afrocentric and they constantly tried to tear her down for that, I think because she wouldn't play into certain stereotypes and because maybe she thought highly of themselves or they just didn't know what to do with her. It was 2003. She was wearing head wraps, and they didn't know what to do with that. Eva. Tyra says during Eva's audition, you know, Eva was known to sort of like be Eva the diva. Eva had like a, you know, a little mean streak. At least that's how she was painted. Tyra said during the Eva's audition, I don't want to cast another black Bitch. That's, of course, you know. And so basically calling out this, like, angry black woman stereotype. So what they did with the diversity, yes, they had these very beautiful women that challenged our ideas around beauty, but they didn't challenge our ideas around, like, stereotypes and how people act. You know, Asian contestants were brought on. There's a contestant, April, who was constantly told, you're too mechanical. Where's the heart? Where's the soul? She was very good, but she was too good, which, like, plays into this model minority thing. So they brought diversity on, but what they did with that diversity was just, like, tell the same old story, which is even more heartbreaking because Tyra's a black woman who talks about the racism that she felt in the industry. And so to sort of, like, revisit that on these women that are sort of looking up to you as a mentor, it's something I couldn't ignore, because when I rewatched this show, it's the early 2000s, and so there are a lot of wild stereotypes on TV at that time. If you watch TV from back then, you can't believe that, like, we were okay with all of this. But watching, revisiting it, I think it really just stood out because of. Because of how far we've come in terms of conversations around race and stereotypes. Obviously, there's still, like, a lot of racism. Right. There's just certain things you can't do and say on TV anymore. And Top Model did a lot of those things. So that's how I sort of evolved on it. Yes, there were all these models of color, but also they were treated really badly.
- [36:06]
Emily Peck
Yeah. And just based on your reporting wasn't like it was unconscious bias or something. There were producers behind the scenes, like, actively shaping these women's portrayal. You had one woman, they asked you, like, your three favorite foods or something, and three places you've lived. You tell the story.
- [36:24]
Bridget Armstrong
UV Gomez, I think she was Cycle four. UV Is Mexican American, and she told us that they wanted her to be, like, a Mexican gang banger. The show said that she was formerly in a gang. When I talked to UV she was like, when I was in middle school, I used to get in trouble, and I had some friends who were in a gang, but I myself was not in a gang, and I did not tell them I was in a gang, but that was the stereotype they wanted from her. So, yeah, she told me that they ask you, like, what are your three favorite foods, three jobs you had, and three places you lived? Right. I think UV Was like, I Like sushi, Taco Bell and like, I can't remember the third one. McDonald's or something. Right. And so they chose, of course, Taco Bell. What are your former jobs? I think she'd worked as a model. Before that she'd worked as a janitor and then she'd worked at like the retail store. They chose the janitor. So now she's a taco eating, former janitor Mexican gang banger.
- [37:16]
Emily Peck
And it was like she had lived in like Monterey, but also Oakland or something. And they were like, oakland?
- [37:21]
Bridget Armstrong
Yeah, Oakland. They picked a place that like it was all of whatever stereotype they could because that's the character they wanted. UV Also had a theory that when she didn't play into that, right. Like she didn't. She wouldn't play into that stereotype. They had to find a new storyline for her. And her storyline was like the girl who couldn't take a decent picture. Tyra actually said to her, this is the worst picture in Top Model history. And UV Was like, but someone behind the scenes told me my pictures were just fine. But she thinks that because they had painted her as this Mexican gang banger, she wouldn't perform as a Mexican gangbanger. She now had to be something and they needed to find a way to get rid of her. Like, that's what they found.
- [37:57]
Emily Peck
I feel like I want to like zoom out a little and like ask about the modeling industry because it's changed a lot since 2003. Not only we already talked about the influencers and all of this, but I mean, Tyra Banks was a supermodel. Supermodels were definitely used to be a thing, A big deal, highly paid. But are supermodels still even a thing? Is there a Top Model in America now?
- [38:20]
Bridget Armstrong
Supermodels are still a thing, but not in the same. They don't get there in the same ways they used to. You know, like, I think like of the Hadid sisters, they're supermodels, but their mom was also on a huge reality show. That's kind of why they are also very popular. I remember a few years ago, models were upset because now it was a lot of actresses who are getting like the covers of magazines. You remember that? Yeah, yeah. So I think who we sort of look to as models or the definition of a model, Right? A person who is placed to sell clothes or a product that sort of shifts to. To include folks who may have gotten there through being influencers.
- [38:56]
Emily Peck
Right.
- [38:56]
Bridget Armstrong
Who may have gotten there because they're actually actors and actresses. But they also do this other thing. So it's. We have them, but it's just different now. But I will say the thing that I think hasn't changed in the industry, not on the supermodel level, right? Because the supermodel, so many models, like, one out of, like, what a thousands of them actually get to be a supermodel. There's this whole industry of models who are just working models, models whose names you really don't know, but they are. That's the only job they do. They're constantly booked. They're in ads. I don't know how much that industry has changed, Right? Like, that part of the industry is still super exploitative. Models are not paid a lot of money. In a lot of instances, there's a certain level you get to where you're now making a lot. This was something we didn't explore on the podcast, was something that's been very interesting to me, especially in certain parts of the world, right? Like, especially in certain parts of the world where models are pulled from to sort of, like, show diversity. Right? Like, so there are a lot of South Sudanese models now. So one could look at the industry and say, it is very diverse. We have a lot of black models in. But those same models are often, like, not paid at all. Or they get into contracts where they're kind of like indentured servants. The folks will say, okay, I'm going to bring you from your city to Cape Town or London or Paris, but I'm going to pay for your flight, pay for your visas, pay for everything. But we're going to recoup that through the contracts that we're getting you. So you might be walking for, you know, a huge brand, but a large majority of that money is going to go back to pay your debts. They're also paying for where you're living and charging you an exorbitant amount of money to live there. Right? The money you're getting from that photo shoot you did is going to go back to pay that debt. And so it keeps models in this cycle. They're often the models that have the least agency or have the least resources that are preyed on. But it's not just that. Like, there are reports about models living in terrible housing. You know, European models, American models living in terrible housing in Europe. These model houses where it's like one bathroom, two bedrooms, and 12 people in bunk beds, right? And these are working models. Like, these are people who are on the pages of Vogue. So in that way, I think the industry is still extremely Exploitative for people who don't have a voice. So we see the folks that go from influencer to model making a lot of money. Right. But by the nature of being an influencer, you already had a voice when you came into it. It's these other models that are nameless, I'll say, whose faces we see everywhere, who are still getting explo. And in that way, I think Top Model did mirror the industry. Top Model mirrored the industry a lot, to be honest. Body shaming and all. But even the way that they, like, didn't pay girls, you know, they weren't making anything from this, although they were making this show a lot of money and very, very popular. That is very much a page from the industry.
- [41:40]
Emily Peck
So basically, I want to know a America's Next Top Model, Is it different in any way from the other reality TV shows? Like, is there anything exceptional about it versus the other reality TV shows?
- [41:50]
Bridget Armstrong
I mean, I think it's exceptional in its entertainment. Entertainment. I'll say that.
- [41:53]
Emily Peck
You just like it a lot.
- [41:54]
Bridget Armstrong
Yeah, it's a good show. I mean, it's a horrible show. Right. But they made a good product. I think in terms of, like I've mentioned with the contract. Yeah, the contract. Even for reality TV contracts, Top Model went really far. But other contracts of that era also went far. And there have been, you know, conversations about some of those shows, too. I mean, I think the Biggest Loser, there was a documentary about the Biggest Loser and how exploitative it was. Like, so there were other shows that were really bad at that time. And I think because it was the wild, wild west of reality tv, like, the. There were no rules. We see that. But I think how Top Model stands out is it just went on for so long, and the contracts, the way they treated people, didn't really change over that time, even though the rest of the industry was kind of changing.
- [42:37]
Emily Peck
I mean, I remember just a few years ago, there was talk about reality TV stars wanting to unionize. And you say that was the wild west back then, but have things gotten actually better for reality TV show stars?
- [42:50]
Bridget Armstrong
Not really. I mean, I'll give a just a very brief history of television and reality TV in the early 2000s. Right. Like, this is where we see these shows, but the reality TV boom, like Real Housewives of New York, Real Housewives of Atlanta, Teen mom, like shows that we. Jersey Shore, that we think of as defining reality TV, that was around 2008 or 2009. What happened in 2007 was the writers strike in Hollywood. So a lot of scripted Programming was put on hold. And so network works that had not already turned to reality TV turn to reality TV because it's cheap to make. And reality TV actors or reality TV contestants or stars are not in a union. You could pay them what you want to pay them. There are certain things you don't have to do, unfortunately. Although reality TV sort of became this huge genre in and of itself that for many networks is their bread and butter. The reality TV part of it, unfortunately, even though it became that people didn't really go back and look at that sort of union part of it, the protections that maybe we should, if we're going to keep doing this and doing it at such a large scale, maybe there should be some sort of protections. It just kept on going in that way. So Bethany Frankel, who was on Real Housewives of New York back in the day. Yes.
- [44:04]
Emily Peck
That she's seen chicken salad on TikTok.
- [44:07]
Bridget Armstrong
He is, he's the one who does the skinny girl margaritas. Like if we have to drink our margaritas and think about the calories, like have we not taken the fun out of it?
- [44:14]
Emily Peck
But what are we doing?
- [44:15]
Bridget Armstrong
Anyway? Bethany is the one who called for the. The unionization of reality star because she's on Housewives and Housewives has been. Housewives is just full of drama. And I'm not talking about on the show like Housewives have been sued before. They've been accused of not great working conditions. They've been accused of racism. They've been accused of a lot of stuff. But that comes from a place of, yeah, reality stars not really having any protections. There's no protections around the amount of hours you work. There was a lawsuit against Love is Blind, the Netflix show. One of those contestants. Contestants said that they were working 20 hour days, but they're making a thousand dollars a week. You know, like they said they were not even making minimum wage. That doesn't math out. But because reality stars are often contractors, they're not employees, these networks are able to sort of skirt around some of these protections that would be there. And then on top of the fact that they are not unionized, so there's not a targeted effort to have a standard of pay or standard of hours. In a lot of ways, I think reality TV has come far in that there are shows like Housewives where you can make $2 million a season. Right. There are shows like Love island where you can make a lot less a season, but get off and get a million dollar contract to do something else. Right. Your earning potential is there, but the treatment. I don't know if that's changed that much. Maybe we can't do certain stereotypes, but they've replaced that with other things. Maybe we won't do a Runway where, like, a girl is being pushed off a Runway into a pool to possibly break her neck. But. But, you know, like, we will humiliate them or give them too much alcohol, and we know they're recovering alcoholic. Like, these are the sort of things we still continue to see. So in a lot of ways, I don't know. I don't think reality TV has changed. It's just become such a big industry that we think it's better because we see these stars are the beneficiaries of more success.
- [46:01]
Emily Peck
I guess the last thing I wanted to mention, just the narrative shaping that happens in the background. The producers, you know, typecasting contestants and making them into these personalities. I was thinking about that so much, just listening to your show and just thinking about, obviously we have president who, like, our view of him, was informed by producers on a reality TV show. And so I was wondering, like, is that still going on? I don't really have a question about it. I just was thinking about it a lot.
- [46:28]
Bridget Armstrong
Absolutely. It's definitely still going on. And I think I talked to Oliver Twixt. He's a. A content creator, and he interviewed a lot of the models back in, like, 2020. He was a consulting producer kind of on our show. We used a lot of his tape. But he was also on a reality show himself. He was on the Circle on Netflix. And when I talked to Oliver, he gave me so much insight on reality TV now and the things that have changed. Like, he was like, yeah, you know, I had someone checking in with me all the time to make sure I was mentally okay. I was able to give breaks. I was able to say, like, hey, I don't want to go down that road in terms of story. He said, I. It was just a really great experience. However, he did tell me that, man, Oliver is queer. Once he realized that they wanted him to be a certain character, right? He decided, like, okay, I'm gonna play into that. Like, that's what you want. That's what I'm gonna give you. So even with all of sort of the protections and, like, him not feeling necessarily exploited and them checking in on him, they had a psychologist on set, which is something Top Model did not do, but they had a psychologist on set when he was on the Circle. Even with that, they still made him a character. The formula of reality tv and why it works, hasn't changed. Right. Like we want to see people humiliate themselves and to understand these stories, we want to see them as a character or a stereotype or something that we understand. And so that certainly still happens. I think the difference now in some cases, not all the time, right. Some people are still exploited and aren't signing up to be that character. I think the difference now is that that reality stars feel like they're more in on the story. They know what they're supposed to show up and give and they give that because they know that this will either make me popular or infamous and I can gain from that. I think that's the biggest difference. They're still doing it, but the reality stars may feel they have more agency in some cases.
- [48:15]
Emily Peck
Well, Bridget, thank you so much for coming on and explaining this whole world to all the listeners. This has been great.
- [48:21]
Bridget Armstrong
This has been. Thank you so much for having me. It was really fun.
- [48:23]
Emily Peck
And that's, that's our show for this week. Thank you to Jessamyn Molly for producing. Ben Richmond is senior director of podcast operations. Neil Lobel is executive producer of podcasts. And I'll be back in your feed on Saturday along with Felix and Elizabeth for a regular episode of Slate Money. And until then, thanks for listening.
- [48:49]
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